


Between the Ground and the Stars

by AmateurScribes



Series: Bad Things Happen (to Grif) Bingo [12]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Bleeding Out, Discussion of Afterlife, Dying alone, Gen, Graphic Description, Isolation, Major Character Injury, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/pseuds/AmateurScribes
Summary: The sky on Iris fills his vision as his head spins and spins, and as the blood pools and pools beneath him, and he is so utterly alone.





	Between the Ground and the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Got another bingo done- and guess what? I finally got an actual bingo! It only took twelve stories in total, but I've technically won the challenge. Now I just gotta clear the board and then I'll be done with this series. Hope you guys enjoy reading, and as per usual now, this fic is un-Beta'd so all mistakes are mine.

There aren't many times in his life where he's laid down and just stared up at the sky. After all, why look up at the boring old sky when there were hundreds of other things he had to do. But back on Hawai'i, he'd stare up at the night sky, noting how it could never really be dark with the lights of the city, and in the morning, the gradient of blues would never compare to anything else. Never in a million years.

It almost made him saddened when he moved out to New York for college. He visited the city many, many times, and he couldn't see a single star in the night sky. There were a few times where he thought he saw some until he realized that they were airplanes and nothing more. And the morning sky was nothing to gush about, it was blue- plain and simple.

There was always something going on about the sky- old proverbs and the like coming to the forefront of his mind. It was ridiculous how a single look at the coloration could make people take pictures in awe. It wasn't anything special, it was just pretty. It didn't mean anything.

Sarge thought that a blue sky was a bad omen back in Blood Gulch. And that until they purged the Blue scourge for the glory of the Red Army, the sky would remain blue. Ridiculous. A red sky was not a good thing, anyone who was normal would know that. Red skies in morning, sailors take warning and all that nonsense. 

Why was he rambling about the sky of all things? That stupid, stupid,  _ stupid _ sky, that was the only thing that filled his vision as a nice red pooled around his back.

God, he didn't know what he was trying to do. Maybe fix the Warthog to just drive around and calm his nerves. And he just assumed that because he could drive it, he would know exactly how to fix it as well.

He brought along Volley Simmons just so he wouldn't be alone while working on it.

The only problem was, well, after all of those attempts at defeating gravity on Sarge's part, the Warthog was more than a little busted up. 

So in his attempt to fix it up, it exploded on him, parts flying everywhere. 

And a bar of some kind decided to wedge itself deep into his chest, somehow finding the little niche where his armor was weakest, and that was all it needed to embed and impale him into the ground.

It happened so fast that he didn't even realize he was knocked back onto the grass until he was staring up at that disgustingly blue sky.

He lifts his body and feels it glide slightly against the bar and soundly lets it thump against the ground, groaning in pain. He wouldn't be able to move unless he got the bar  _ out of his body. _

With shaky hands, he reaches up and wraps them around the bar. His hands are slicked with blood, and so is where they come in contact with, and it makes it hard for his grip to tighten, but he does his best.

As strong as he can manage, he tries to pull the part out. He feels it shift inside of him, and he gags at the feeling, the sensation of something moving inside of him, and despite the fact that he  _ needs _ to get rid of the bar, he can't. He just can't. There isn't anything or anyone in the world who could convince him to pull out that damn thing, and he lets the blood dribble out of his mouth as he lets his arms collapse and pull away. 

Everything fucking sucked at the moment. 

What would the others think, if they came back to find his corpse soundly pinned to the ground? 

Because he  _ was _ going to die. There was no other way out of this situation. 

He couldn't call for help because he had left his helmet on the table in the base, not bothering to take any other part of his armor off simply because he'd rather not get grease on his only clothes available.  Besides, who would he call? And who would be able to arrive in time to get him medical help? 

No one. The answer was no one.

Looking to the side, he becomes face to ball with the volleyball he brought along with him. Its golden aluminum visor stared at him silently, judging the carelessness he had with attempting to repair the Warthog. 

He wants to make it say something to him, he doesn't want to die in silence. But when he opens his mouth all that spills out is spit and blood, instead of insults or reprimands.

Goddammit. 

If he can't make it talk, then he wants to have it in his hands, as a comfort. If no one will hold him in an embrace while he dies, then he wants to hold something in return.

Shuffling his arm against the ground, he reaches out and stretches toward the ball, fingers just near enough to brush against it, but not enough to bring it closer to himself. 

With a grimace, he tries to turn his body closer, tries to give himself more range, because he refuses- he spurns the very thought- of not having this one fucking comfort for himself. He feels the pole jostle, and he shivers in disgust, and he feels tears prick at the corner of his eyes as he reaches and reaches out.

His fingers do more than brush against the ball now, they  _ push _ against it, blood smearing on the side of it. And that little push is enough to send it softly rolling away, further out of reach and down, down the small incline. It rolls out of sight and he is completely alone now.

His eyes are wide, not in shock or anger, but in compliance, and his mouth is a firm line, with a small amount of bloody spittle dribbling out. He leaves his arm outstretched on the grass, and he just stares.

He doesn't lift his head to look back up at the fucking sky, or to turn it away from where his only attempt at comfort had spiraled away from him.

His vision starts to get fuzzy, and he starts to get light-headed, and he's sure that he's losing a lot of blood- perhaps too much blood even. His cheeks start to feel wet, the one against the grass becoming colored red and the one facing the sky becoming streaked in clear tears, dancing down his cheek to join the blood beneath him and staining the color. 

He's in so much pain right now that he's become numb, and he's still staring, hoping that something- perhaps the volleyball- would re-enter his view, because he doesn't want to die all alone.

He doesn't want to die period.

His thoughts become muddled, and they tack hard on the thought that he's going to die and there will be nothing left for him. His soul would dissipate and it would be like he never existed in the first place. Or perhaps there really is an afterlife, and he'll be sentenced to an eternity of suffering as punishment for not believing in a god. Or maybe his soul would reincarnate and he'd become a new person entirely, and he'd live and he'd die and he'd do it all over again.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

His eyes are heavy and he knows that he's going to die, and no amount of time thinking about life after death will stop it from happening. He would have lived like a match flame, bright and brilliantly warm to serve his purpose and then gone in a blink. He has done his job, and he doesn't think he could do more. 

Maybe SIM Troopers were never meant to retire, they were meant to keep the flame going and do their job and as soon as their usefulness was extinguished they would be snuffed out. That was the nature of his assignment as part of the Red Army, and that was the nature of the program.

Even after before the Gulch he had lived in a war to war scenario, from just surviving to being stationed at that colony, and after it stayed the same. The war has never left him, and when he tried to leave it, it just came back and killed him in a fit of karma.

It is with great effort that he keeps his eyes open, staring off and glimpsing at the water's edge, at where the sun has decided to leave and paint the sky in a sea of flames. At the sight of the reddened sky is the only thing left for him as he exalts his last breath, as the life drains out of his body and returns to the ground beneath him.

And this is the sight that greets Locus when he arrives on Iris weeks later to find the SIM Trooper a corpse pinned to the ground, looking and gesturing at a rising sun, as if he knew that it would be the only thing that continued to remain constant on this moon.

**Author's Note:**

> A small prompt, but I finally figured out how I wanted to go about it. I had a few concerns that I wouldn't make it to my minimum of 1,500 words, but I made it there!
> 
> If for any reason, my Tumblr's are: @agent-murica (main) and @amateurscribes (writing).


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